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Personal lifeLiving in his native England until the mid 1970s, Barry spent some time in Spain (for tax reasons) but has since spent his life in the United States, mainly in Oyster Bay outside of New York.
Barry has been married four times. His first three marriages ended in divorce: Barbara Pickard 1959-63; Jane Birkin 1965-68; and Jane Sidey 1969-71. He married his current wife, Laurie Barry on 3 January 1978. Barry has three children, one each from his first, second and fourth marriages. CareerHis family was in the cinema business, but it was during his National Service that he began performing as a musician. After taking a correspondence course (with jazz composer Bill Russo) and arranging for some of the bands of the day, he formed the John Barry Seven. Barry then met Adam Faith, and composed songs and film scores on the singer's behalf. These achievements caught the attention of the producers of a new film called Dr. No who were dissatisfied with the score given to them by Monty Norman. Barry was hired and the result would arguably be the most famous signature tune in film history, the 'James Bond Theme'. (Credit goes to Monty Norman, see below.)
Barry is often cited as having a distinct style which concentrates on lush strings and extensive use of brass. However he is also an innovator, being one of the first to employ synthesisers in a film score (On Her Majesty's Secret Service), and to make wide use of pop artists and songs in Midnight Cowboy. (Note that while The Graduate came a few years before, those songs had all been previously released.) Barry is also know for the famous score he wrote for the theme tune for TV Series The Persuaders, also known as "The Unlucky Heroes" in which Tony Curtis and Roger Moore were paired as rich playboys solving crimes. The theme went to be a hit single in some European Countries and has been re-released on collections of 1970s disco hits. The instumental recording features Moog synthesisers. Barry also wrote the scores to a number of musicals, including the successful West End show Billy and two major Broadway flops, The Little Prince and the Aviator and Lolita, My Love, the latter with Alan Jay Lerner as lyricist. During 2006, Barry was the Executive Producer on an album entitled, Here's to the Heroes by the Australian ensemble, The Ten Tenors. The album features a number of songs Barry wrote in collaboration with his lyricist friend, Don Black. Barry's orchestration very often combines the horn section with the strings in a way that makes his music immediately recognisable. By providing not just the main title theme but the complete soundtrack score, Barry's music often enhances the critical reception of a film. It is particularly notably on "Midnight Cowboy", "Out of Africa", and "Dances with Wolves." James Bond seriesImage:007FRWLsoundtrack.jpg From Russia with Love was Barry's first James Bond original score After the success of Dr. No, Barry progressed to scoring 11 of the next 14 James Bond series films; his first, as lead composer, is From Russia with Love (1963). In his tenure with the film series, Barry's music, variously brassy and moody, appealed to film aficionados, as witnessed inthe sales of the soundtrack albums. For From Russia With Love he composed "007", an alternate James Bond signature theme, which is featured in four other Bond films (Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker). The theme "Stalking", for the teaser sequence of From Russia With Love, was covered by colleague Marvin Hamlisch for the The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). (The lyrics for Russia's title song were written by Lionel Bart, who went on to write Oliver!) In Goldfinger he would perfect the "Bond sound", a heady mixture of brass, jazz and sensuous melodies. There's even an element of Barry's jazz roots in the big-band track "Into Miami," which follows the title credits and accompanies the film's iconic image of the camera lens zooming toward the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. As Barry matured, the Bond scores concentrated more on lush melodies, as in Moonraker and Octopussy. Barry's score for A View to a Kill was traditional, however his collaboration with Duran Duran for the title song was contemporary and one of the most successful Bond themes to date, reaching number one in the United States and number two in the UK Singles Chart. Both A View to a Kill and the Living Daylights theme by a-ha blended the pop music style of the artists with Barry's orchestration. In 2006 a-ha's Pal Waaktaar complimented Barry's contributions "I loved the stuff he added to the track, I mean it gave it this really cool string arrangement. That's when for me it started to sound like a Bond thing".[2]
David Arnold, a young British composer, saw the result of two years work in 1997 with the release of Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project, an album of new versions of the themes from various James Bond films. Almost all of the tracks were John Barry compositions and the revision of his work obviously met with his approval - he contacted Barbara Broccoli, producer of the upcoming Tomorrow Never Dies, to recommend Arnold as the film's composer.[3] Arnold also went on to score the subsequent Bond films; The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day and Casino Royale. It has been suggested that Barry is no longer associated with the Bond films due to salary disputes with MGM, although it is equally possible that he would rather concentrate on new projects. Industry trade papers reported during the late 1980s that the studio decided to go for "a new sound," coinciding with Timothy Dalton assuming the role of James Bond (replacing the departing Roger Moore). This occurred after The Living Daylights, Dalton's first film in the series, which was Barry's last Bond score. Authorship of the "James Bond Theme"Sole compositional credit for 'The James Bond Theme' is attributed to Monty Norman (who'd been contracted as composer for 'Dr. No'), however, Barry, while not publicly denying that, has implied otherwise. Some thirty years later, authorial matters came to a head in court when Monty Norman sued The Sunday Times when that claim was published in a 1997 article namin John Barry as the true composer; Barry testified for the defence.[4] In court, Barry declared he had been handed a musical manuscript of a work by Norman (meant to become the theme) and that he was to arrange it musically, and that he composed additional music and arranged 'The James Bond Theme'. The Court also was told that Norman received sole credit, because of his prior contract with the producers; Norman won the lawsuit and was awarded damages. http://www.geocities.com/jaoll/barry/lawsuit.htm Nevertheless, on 7 September 2006, John Barry publicly defended his authorship of the theme on the Steve Wright show on BBC Radio 2.[5] Other major film scores
Television themes
Other works
John Barry was inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame in 1998. References
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